There was no sign of any fuss around the ordinary-looking Border farm yesterday where, according to some, the UK's richest underworld figure and the leader of the IRA lives.
While police and the Assets Recovery Agency raided sites across Manchester, the Murphy farm, bisected by the Armagh-Louth Border, sat undisturbed in isolated silence.
If this is a hub for multi-million pound racketeering and an IRA HQ of sorts, it certainly doesn't look it.
Hackballscross Garda station, just a short distance away on the N53, looks an equally unimposing building despite being one of the sites where the State organises its counter-subversion effort.
This is countryside marked by occasional rural shops, the odd crossroads pub and a weathered "'Smash H-Block" slogan. The road to the Murphy farm looks as if it too has been neglected since the hunger strikes. Somewhere, the Border winds its invisible path through the ordinary outbuildings in the townland of Ballybinaby where it is alleged the one-time head of MI5's wanted list made his fortune smuggling fuel and farm produce.
If so, the IRA's "reclusive godfather", as ITN called him yesterday, saw little contradiction in fighting to eradicate the Border and end partition while using that same Border to his own lucrative ends.
The frontier has other uses too. It is said that Mr Murphy simply moved rooms in his farmhouse to avoid arrest by either the Garda or the RUC.
The locals here, as in nearby Crossmaglen, are people of few words. If you can find them, that is.
"You will be smelled immediately," one warned The Irish Times, which merely wanted to get Mr Murphy's side of the story from the man himself. "I'd be cautious if I was you."